


An Ugly Fact of Life

by yuletide_archivist



Category: In Plain Sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary doesn't always get or like Brandi, but she doesn't want to let her family get lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Ugly Fact of Life

**Author's Note:**

> This is not at all what I wanted it to be. That's probably not what I'm supposed to write here, but it's the truth. It's not a comment on the quality of the story, as the author, I'm hardly fit to judge that, but. I don't know. Women confuse me. Thanks to Kier for the quick and dirty beta. There are probably still mistakes in here, and they are all mine.
> 
> Written for Hope

 

 

Nobody keeps Mary waiting, because anybody who'd be in a position to keep Mary waiting knows Mary and knows that Mary hates to be kept waiting.

This, of course, precludes her mother and Brandi, because they're family, because they know her best, and they do it mostly just to fuck with her.

*

"Calm down," Brandi is laughing, half-incredulously, as the wheels of Mary's truck squeal around the corner of the cracked Albuquerque pavement, now wet with opaque and weirdly dusty water. Mary's brain is telling her unhelpful things, like Albuquerque's average annual rainfall is around five inches, and the way the rain is falling so hard it's creating a tangible wall means that, if it's still raining this hard by noon, they'll have had all the rain they're supposed to for a year.

"Somebody has to make money if anyone in this family wants to eat, and as long as that's not going to be you or Mom, I will not calm down," Mary says conversationally, and lets her truck screech to an abrupt stop as she belatedly notices she won't catch the light. She would've needed to be going at least 80 to make the light, that unhelpful brain part is telling her again, and it almost makes her want to turn and strangle Marshall, except that he's really, really not there. Mary stares blankly at her whitening knuckles and grinds her teeth.

"Mom has a job at the bar, Mary," Brandi says, slowly, like Mary's mentally retarded. Mary spares her sister a terrifyingly withering look at the expense of the traffic and notices her face is all pinched and funny. Mary wonders abruptly if she said Marshall's name out loud or something, but then her sister is pointing at the windshield, and Mary is back looking at traffic and hitting the gas before Brandi has a chance to say-

"Light's green."

-which she does anyway. Mary makes the most frustrated sound she can manage through her clenched teeth and turns into the WitSec parking lot with far more abandon than necessary.

"This is the last time you get to borrow my car."

*

Mary wears her anger like an angora-fur jacket. Anything it touches is covered in traces of it, and most people are allergic to it even though its source is bread specifically for human consumption. It makes Marshall stare.

"Hello Marshall," Mary mutters, distracted, as she walks over to her desk and starts riffling through papers.

"Hello Marshall," Brandi parrots, uncharacteristic warmth in her voice.

It makes Marshall stop staring (at Mary, anyway) and jerks Mary's head up from what she was doing.

"What are you doing here?" Marshall and Mary ask at almost the same time. Brandi unwraps the gum she's holding, while the door to the conference room clanks open. Stan walks out through the door staring distractedly at his handheld.

"Marshall, Mary, Brandi," he grumbles absently in greeting before stopping dead in his tracks and squinting at Brandi. The squinting doesn't so much ease up as switch targets, and Mary shifts her weight in exasperation.

"Mary, I thought you understood why we can't bring guests up here," Stand soldiers on, oblivious.

"She's not my guest," Mary says, while Brandi, louder, talks over her, saying:

"I'm Marshall's guest."

Mary, Marshall, and Stan all stare at each other in confusion, while Brandi snaps her gum contentedly. Stan, blinking, turns to squint at Marshall.

"Marshall, I thought you understood why we can't bring guests up here."

Marshall twirls thoughtfully in his chair and keeps his tone political while saying: "I feel like I've walked into a Marx Brothers movie."

"I don't get it," Brandi admits, more amused than annoyed.

Mary smiles brilliantly at her sister, which causes Stan to take a few steps back to where he can safely exit the room, if need be. "It means you're not Marshall's guest either, sister dear. Now go wait in the car."

*

"Jeeze, I was just trying to be nice," Brandi whines, letting Mary march her away from the idling car and back towards their home.

"Yeah, that would make sense, except for how you're not nice to people," Mary responds tightly. "I've told you a million times that you can't come up to work. I don't know how to make the reasons why any clearer to you except to repeat myself in saying that I work with people who would kill little old ladies for less than the change in your back pocket."

"Drama queen," her sister sighs. "I just wanted to say hi to Marshall."

Mary looks at her, tilting her head a little sideways before speaking. "But you don't like Marshall any more than the next random cashier at Smith's."

"Hey, the one that works the 15-items-or-less aisle on Thursday mornings is kinda cute," Brandi grins, her eyes glazing over a little.

Mary opens her mouth, and then closes it.

"Jesus Christ," she says, throwing her hands up in the air. "I'm going back to work."

*

Stan's scratching his left ear and avoiding both their eyes, which means he has to explain something he really doesn't want to explain. Marshall had tried to inter the concept of tells to Stan ages ago, but the man, while understanding the idea as it related to poker, seemed unwilling or unable to apply it to life (or more specifically, handling Mary).

"Basically, federal funding's going through another quarterly decline, but for some reason no one understands or is willing to take responsibility for, we were assigned too many cases for our budget allocation."

Mary wants Stan to get to the point. Marshall, out of the corner of her eye, looks like he knows where this is going, but Mary finds speculation, at least when it comes to the administrative part of WitSec, is energy better spent glaring the answers out of people. Marshall may have once called her a caveman because of this, but it's no skin off her nose.

"I think you should get to the point, Stan," Marshall says.

Stan only looks surprised (as if the idea of brining things to a tangible conclusion had never occurred to him) for at most five seconds, and then starts clearing his throat rather reluctantly.

"Well, yes. We, uh. We have to pick."

"Pick what? Our noses?" Mary sighs.

"No, there are two cases that were slotted for Albuquerque, and we only have the resources for one. So we have to pick."

"We have to pick one."

"Yes, we have to pick one," Stan half-shouts, agitated. Stan's not great with transparency, but Mary can't live with anything but. Marshall smoothly interrupts the two of them.

"When do we have to make the selection by?"

Stan checks the letter in front of him, before pushing the two case files their way. "Noon tomorrow. Allez-y, kids."

Mary just looks at Marshall, who says, "It means 'get to it,' so let's do, tiger," with an elegant quirk of his eyebrows, before standing and holding the door open for her. Mary doesn't like the situation at all, but doesn't know how to fight it. She opts, in the heartbeat it takes for her partner to open the door, to follow his lead.

For now.

*

Mary picks up the phone on the third ring.

"WitSec, Shannon speaking."

"Is this whole not-wanting-me-to-hang-out-with-Marshall thing like the not-wanting-me-to-hang-out-with-Raphael thing, or are we dealing with two separate issues here?"

Mary laughs loud enough to startle Stan from his office. Marshall, from his post by their communal work space, just looks a frown at Mary, and then shrugs in Stan's general direction. When she can breathe again, she hangs up the phone.

*

Marshall picks up Mary's phone for her on the eighth ring, after his patented "you're acting like a child" eye roll, and Mary starts running back to her desk from the candy machine.

"WitSec, Mann speaking for Shannon."

Mary has the phone out of his hand before either of them can hear the reply.

"Stop calling me at work," Mary says as sternly as she can around a mouth full of Three Musketeers.

"Just give me an answer, and I will," Brandi sniffs at her through wire and plastic.

"You don't really want to hang out with Marshall, Brandi. You're just bored and bothering me at work. Stop it," Mary says, starting to get truly frustrated, and hangs up.

"Maybe she does really want to hang out with me," Marshall offers.

"You stay out of this, dammit," Mary mutters, taking another bite of her candy bar and swallowing much too fast. "Ow," Mary whines as it scrapes the sides of her esophagus. "Ow, ow, ow."

"I hear they recommend chewing for that these days, even when dealing with processed, chemical sugarstuffs."

Mary makes an obnoxious fake laughing sound and grabs the second case file from Marshall's hands while stuffing hers into his. "Here, have an old cat lady, smartass."

"And receive a rapist in return."

"How delightful," Mary says, screwing up her face and sitting down to read.

*

Stan looks very suspicious.

"That took you two a lot less time than I thought it was going to," he says, shifting his weight.

"Just goes to show that I can be reasonable sometimes," Mary says proudly and kicks Marshall in the shins, hard, when he starts snickering almost involuntarily.

"And who's the lucky winner?" Stan asks, almost fearfully, as if Mary was about to leap at him and shout 'just kidding' or something. Mary hadn't really thought she was that unpredictable and, for a brief moment, actually feels kind of sorry for Stan. Marshall pushes forward the 'cat lady' case file and watches as Stan browses through it. After a few moments, the man looks up, and, this time, seems to have firmly affixed his "Boss" hat on top of his head before he makes eye contact with the two Deputies.

"You do realize this woman has, tops, another fifteen years of her life left to live, while the other candidate has another sixty or more?"

"Yes, well, we felt that the nature of the woman was more conducive to this particular environment," Marshall hedges.

"I don't understand," Stan says, after a moment.

"Then allow me to clarify," Mary interjects, leaving Marshall with his mouth open and first word half-spoken. "The kid is an amoral monster, while granny here seems like she might deserve a quiet last 15 at the expense of the government."

Marshall shuts his mouth with an audible click and a half-hearted sigh.

Stan looks at Mary for a few quiet moments before sitting down and starting to sort through papers. "Cat Lady it is."

*

Mary shuts the door to find Brandi up waiting for her, drunk.

"You're home late," is what Brandi says.

"Is mom asleep?" is how Mary responds.

"Ye-up," Brandi sighs, slouching over to where her sister has started to make inroads into the kitchen. She pours herself onto the kitchen counter and watches the grace of her older sister's short, efficient work in getting leftovers prepped for the microwave.

It's the fact that Brandi's quiet that prompts Mary to say, "Are we going to seriously have to talk about Marshall?"

Brandi grins, but it's not a simple smile. "'Course not, big sis. I was just screwing around."

Mary stops what she's doing and looks Brandi in her half-closed eyes. "The Raph thing was different. Is different."

"Different because of sex, or different because of love?" Brandi says, all benign softness.

Mary looks at her and smiles. She wants to tell her brain that it's stupid for envying the clarity and adolescence with which Brandi seems to hold everything in regard. "I'm not screwing Marshall, and I'm not in love with Marshall."

"One of those is a lie," Brandi sings, drawing out the last word.

"Nope, it's not," Mary says matter-o-factly, and jumps a little at the beep-beep-beep of the microwave proclaiming itself done.

"It is," Brandi insists, wandering over to Mary and clinging to her waist. "It is it is it is."

"Maybe we need to have this conversation when you're sober," she says, extricating herself from her younger sister's grip.

Brandi fights her a little, just a little more than necessary with lazy warmth running through her veins. "Maybe, but I'm right."

"How can you be so sure?" Mary laughs, exasperated.

"Because," Brandi says loud enough for Mary to reflexively shush her and listen for any changed sounds coming from her their mother's room. "Because," Brandi insists more quietly, poking Mary on the nose, "you're my sister."

Brandi seems proud of her declaration and collapses onto the couch. Mary follows her with her plate of food, but not before noticing an old, dirty, waterlogged suitcase standing in the hallway.

"Hey," she asks Brandi, nudging her sister's supine form with a jab of her butt. "Isn't that the old suitcase you said you were going to throw away a few weeks ago? It looks like shit."

Engrossed in stabbing her food, Mary misses how horribly Brandi's face crumbles. It's only for a few seconds, because all the Shannon women are professional liars, but like missing the last flight out on a snowy night, it's something tragically irreversible and microcosmically significant. But Brandi's alright, Brandi's always alright, and so by the time Mary does look down at her sister, all she has for Mary to see on her face is a sly smile.

"Hey sis, maybe I should get into Witness Protection and have Marshall as my case supervisor. Whaddaya think?" Brandi slurs, and the look on Mary's face makes her laugh far too loud.

Mary slams a hand over Brandi's mouth - the younger woman's eyes wet with tears, mirth, and surprise - and says very quietly and very deliberately: "That's not funny."

*

It turns out that Mary's mother recognizes Cat Lady as Nellie Thompson on her first day in town, and while this would normally mean a transfer to another site, with the budget cuts, it means dropping Cat Lady from WitSec in favor for Boy Rapist.

Suffice it to say nobody is pleased.

*

"Hey Marshall, do you think I'm too involved in my job?" Mary asks as they go to pick up the witness.

Marshall chokes on his Juicy-Juice and takes a few moments to cough it all out before managing to respond. "Talk about a question laced with landmines. Why the sudden bout of introspection?"

"It was something my sister said. Forget it," Mary mutters, and focuses on the road.

"No, I think I'm actually intrigued. It's unlike you to brood over your personal philosophies, I feel like I should encourage the behavior," Marshall prods, trying to keep a grin off his face.

Mary spares him a tortured look before returning her eyes forward, mind a million miles away. It takes her almost an hour before she answers, but Marshall doesn't mind the wait.

*

The witness, some kid from Detroit, is rather predictably an asshole to Mary. He says some really horrible things about Mary's honor that Marshall almost feels inclined to defend, except Mary's doing a pretty damn good job of keeping the whipper-snapper in line herself.

"I think I actually felt that last take-down. Maybe you should try to see if something like WWF theatrics are more effective on the kid than actual violence," Marshall offers, watching the boy splutter and cough in the dirt.

"Yeah?" Mary asks, not really asking anything, while grinding her knee into the kid's tailbone some more. "You ask me, I think he likes it."

"I hope you lock your doors and windows at night, bitch," the kid contributes helpfully.

"Because you know where I live? Christ, spare me," Mary snarls and hauls the kid up jointly by his ear and by his shoulder. "As if you'd have the balls."

The kid starts to struggle again, and Mary body slams him into the side of the car which makes him go still for a little while Mary works him into the back and re-cuffs him.

"Look at it this way: if he keeps this up, you can drop that gym membership and save yourself the money," Marshall comments optimistically.

Mary comes around to the other side of the car, and the two of them climb into the front. "Always look on the bright side of life, Marshall?"

"Unlike Rambo back there, I've never grabbed the wrong woman's breasts for long enough to find out," he responds sagely.

Mary grins. The kid groans.

*

The two of them don't have to deal with the kid long. He's in holding in Roswell while Stan tries to find him a house, when someone leaks that the kid's in WitSec because he ratted out a bunch of cops who overlooked evidence in the name of justice.

He's dead before the beginning of the second day.

The Roswell police promise to look into it, but, to no one's surprise, they don't do a very good job of it.

*

A day later, Brandi goes missing. Mary doesn't find her.

*

"A lot of people question what we do. They question it because we put criminals back on the streets. They question it, because while most people understand the merit of compassion, they believe it has no place in law. Others question it, because they don't see it as compassion at all. We help people lose everything, we help people get lost."

Marshall doesn't say anything, but watches as the power lines pass by in one long blur, waiting for Mary to continue.

"People get lost all the time, Marshall, but no one should be abandoned," Mary says quietly, barely over the roar of the Suburban's engine.

Marshall looks at her, after a minute, and smiles crookedly. "Did you pick your own alias, or was that just Stan's horrible sense of humor?"

Mary looks at him, eyes jerking off the road for a minute, not understanding until suddenly - she does. She does, and then Mary grins. 

 


End file.
